AI Overviews - a(nother) seismic change in search?

We’re now on the eve to ‘celebrate’ the one year anniversary of the wider rollout of Google AI Overviews into UK search results in August 2024. Which site owner is first to toast the occasion then? Anyone? No?...

It’s fair to say the launch of Google’s AI Overviews has been met with a certain degree of consternation, from both digital marketers and site owners more generally, as it exhibits a further shift towards ‘zero click searches’ and away from the search engine’s role as a conduit for users to access websites.

Just so everyone’s aware of what we’re talking about when we’re talking about ‘AI Overviews’, they are these things you will often find at the top of Google search results…

Impacts

What digital marketers and site admins alike find troubling is the potential impacts these informational overviews have on their website traffic.

If a user is going to have their query answered straight from a search result, why would they click through to my site?

And they’d be right. At least that is what the vast majority of evidence is telling us from the data available in the year following the UK rollout - with an average 24% drop in organic traffic reported by marketing tool Ahrefs.

These kinds of numbers are going to make you sit up and take notice. So we wanted to take a closer look using the data at our disposal.

We analysed data from 21 sites, across 8 different sectors/verticals, including;

• Law
• Healthcare
• Real Estate
• Automotive
• Travel & Tourism
• Food & Drink
• Manufacturing
• Architecture

The data

The first thing we looked at was how widespread AI Overviews actually have been in terms of appearing for the search queries the sites in our study have previously drawn traffic from (over the previous 12 months).

For the sites we gathered data from, we noted AI Overviews returned for a whopping 38% of all search terms.

When looking from a sector/vertical POV, this number was as high as 76% for healthcare-related sites - ranging down to as low as 5% for sites with an architectural focus.

However, all of the above only really indicates ‘potential’ impacts of the AI Overview i.e. if AI Overviews are really traffic killers then they are going to affect x% of searches/queries. It becomes a bit more tricky when we are looking to compare for actual traffic decreases over time - mainly because there are quite a number of other variables that could potentially affect traffic which exist outside of AI Overviews.

So as a way to strip away those variables as much as possible, we took a look at the traffic differentials pre AI Overview rollout and post rollout for search queries ONLY where their average search position remained static to a degree of one position change. This sought to address the largest potential issue in ranking changes driving traffic changes rather than the overviews. This hopefully* sought to provide a comparison point between two periods whereby organic ranking position remained the same, with the only introduction to the search results the AI Overviews.

*as a caveat there certainly are other factors which could affect traffic beyond ranking position (e.g. seasonality, ad positioning, changes in competitor sites present in search results), however we would suggest it's a good indicator!

With this in mind, we found that organic traffic on average was reduced 17% for these search terms we identified. 

Although a slightly lower figure than the 24% average quoted earlier by Ahrefs, it is still a significant reduction and I’m sure the idea of losing potentially a fifth of your users overnight is something which could give you pause for thought!

Just for good measure we also thought we’d take a look at clickthrough rates (i.e. the proportion of users clicking a search listing after seeing it) and see just how much of an impact AI Overviews could realistically be having.

We discovered that on average clickthrough rate (CTR) had decreased 19% in the time following the rollout (again only using terms where their average ranking had remained largely the same in the period pre and post).

Takeaways

• The search landscape HAS changed… Over a third of the total search terms which made up this study included an AI Overview - essentially bumping the average search listing down one place as a result!
• …and it has led to decreases in organic traffic as a result. Only one of the 21 sites we gathered data from saw an increase in traffic during the period after the AI Overview rollout compared to before (from search terms where organic rankings remained the same).
• Search terms triggering AI Overviews are more likely to be informational or ‘question and answer’ terms. Although we have divided our study by sectors/verticals, it seems that it is the intent behind the query which plays the most important role in how/when AI Overviews are triggered. Those whereby a user can be given a definitive answer to their query or are simply seeking information are more likely to be susceptible to AI Overviews.
• Although organic traffic may have decreased, this doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘conversions’ in the short term have too…Due to the nature of queries at risk of delivering reduced traffic because of AI Overviews, many search queries which have an intent behind them to interact with a website through an onward journey (e.g. making an appointment, booking a table, purchasing an item) are less likely to be affected. This is because either this type of term won’t trigger an AI Overview or if it does the user still likely knows they need to access the website in order to perform the action they need performed.
• …however in the long term will it lead to conversions dropping off similarly? Although conversions in the here and now might be less affected by AI Overviews, it does pose a potential danger to the concept of brand building i.e. attracting users who might not want to contact/purchase/book today but may tomorrow. If a user is no longer visiting a website to read information they are not being exposed to the brand and will therefore not build that brand equity/positive brand association for the user to want to return to when they are in a more ‘intentful’ mood.

Ultimately we’ve taken a look at the data, so you don’t have to! We’d be more than delighted to take a deeper dive for your specific site if you feel you may be missing out on traffic because of AI Overviews (and potentially then draw up a strategy as to how to deal with any impacts). Get in touch with us either through our contact form or by @ing us on our socials and let’s talk!